Over the past couple days I have had a lot of requests for the DB Complex article. Since the last site has closed, and we do not have our article page up, I can send it you via e-mail if you need it. I have already e-mailed it to those whose e-mails that I have. If you want it just let me know.
tannerkolb@hotmail.com
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
Monday, February 26, 2007
This Weekend's Wrestling
Well I some good news this past weekend, and it help cheer me up, I had been sick all weekend. I was chatting with a friend who's son I trained for about a year and a half, when he told me that the state tournament for wrestling had been this last weekend. I have been so busy around here lately I had not checked up on it in quite some time. So I did some digging and got the results that I needed. There were 3 wrestlers that I trained for this upcoming season, and they all did well this year.
Ky Corley- you could not pack any more tenacity into a small package. He is a true fighter, and does not know the meaning of the word quit. Ky wrestled 125 and finish with second place. Awesome job, I know you were looking for 1st, but you got 1 more year to get it done, good job.
Walker Clarke- I like the big guys, and Walker is an animal, wrestling at 189. I did not have the pleasure of working as long with Walker as I did with Ky but from the moment he walked in the door it was all busyness. I think the best way to describe Walker is a man on a mission for his senior year. Congrats on the State Title.
Troy Williams- probably the most coachable athlete that I have ever worked with, I usually had to kick him out of the weight room to get him to leave. I think that if I told troy to run through a brick wall he would have done it. He knew how to use the tools he has to get the job done. Awesome job, wrestling at 145 ending the senior season on a win and 3rd place at States.
I am proud to have worked with all you guys, you have done well and all the hard work you have put in has paid off.
On a side note, my little brother has made it through the second to last qualifying tournament on his way to states. So with a 3rd or better place this weekend he will be off to the state tournament in the toughest wrestling state in the country. Good job Caleb.
Ky Corley- you could not pack any more tenacity into a small package. He is a true fighter, and does not know the meaning of the word quit. Ky wrestled 125 and finish with second place. Awesome job, I know you were looking for 1st, but you got 1 more year to get it done, good job.
Walker Clarke- I like the big guys, and Walker is an animal, wrestling at 189. I did not have the pleasure of working as long with Walker as I did with Ky but from the moment he walked in the door it was all busyness. I think the best way to describe Walker is a man on a mission for his senior year. Congrats on the State Title.
Troy Williams- probably the most coachable athlete that I have ever worked with, I usually had to kick him out of the weight room to get him to leave. I think that if I told troy to run through a brick wall he would have done it. He knew how to use the tools he has to get the job done. Awesome job, wrestling at 145 ending the senior season on a win and 3rd place at States.
I am proud to have worked with all you guys, you have done well and all the hard work you have put in has paid off.
On a side note, my little brother has made it through the second to last qualifying tournament on his way to states. So with a 3rd or better place this weekend he will be off to the state tournament in the toughest wrestling state in the country. Good job Caleb.
Thursday, February 22, 2007
great things for some great kids
As i touched on in the article from earlier this week, I have recently had some big things happen in the weight room, and i thought that I would take a minute and recognize the hard work of some of these athletes.
We are taking a group of our guys up to the UP for a power lifting competition in a couple of weeks, so as of late our focus has been on "move as much weight as possible." Over the last 3 times in the weight room I have been teaching squatting for this competition, and the results have been phenomenal. I did not ask any of the guys so I will not tell you there names but here are the statistics:
soph 148 squat-325 50lb PR
soph 260 squat-385
jnr 172 squat-325 50lb PR
jnr 178 squat-395 70lb PR
jnr 204 squat-405
jnr 230 squat-very easy405
So needless to say I was pretty jacked at these numbers as a coach but I was really glad for some of the other "less dedicated" athletes see how hard work pays off.
Well that's all I got for now.
We are taking a group of our guys up to the UP for a power lifting competition in a couple of weeks, so as of late our focus has been on "move as much weight as possible." Over the last 3 times in the weight room I have been teaching squatting for this competition, and the results have been phenomenal. I did not ask any of the guys so I will not tell you there names but here are the statistics:
soph 148 squat-325 50lb PR
soph 260 squat-385
jnr 172 squat-325 50lb PR
jnr 178 squat-395 70lb PR
jnr 204 squat-405
jnr 230 squat-very easy405
So needless to say I was pretty jacked at these numbers as a coach but I was really glad for some of the other "less dedicated" athletes see how hard work pays off.
Well that's all I got for now.
Wednesday, February 21, 2007
Whats New
So as you can see we have done a bit of an overhaul on the entire website. I am excited, everything looks so great and I think that it will be more functional to those who come for our services.
From now on I will be treating my blog just as that, a blog, and JD and I will combine to have an artical section off of our main page. I will put up all of the old articles and I will continue to answer any questions you have about those and new articles both here and by e-mail.
With this new format I am hoping for a more personal touch, and I hope to get more response from those that read. So until next time, be strong in body and spirit.
Tanner
From now on I will be treating my blog just as that, a blog, and JD and I will combine to have an artical section off of our main page. I will put up all of the old articles and I will continue to answer any questions you have about those and new articles both here and by e-mail.
With this new format I am hoping for a more personal touch, and I hope to get more response from those that read. So until next time, be strong in body and spirit.
Tanner
To Be or Not To Be...Single
Single…
I thought that I would write an article dealing with the difference between doing an exercise with one extremity or both, and what benefits or drawbacks we can by doing such exercises. I will first list some examples of exercises that I am talking about so you get the picture of what I am talking about:
-squat vs. single leg squat
-bench press vs. single arm DB press
-snatch vs. single arm snatch
Ok, I assume you get the point and can think of more exercise that you can manipulate to make a single leg/arm lift. These lifts have both benefits and drawbacks as far as your training goes. There are different ways to increase strength, and one of these is to decrease stability. That is exactly what is happening when you go from two to one leg. You have decreased your stability and intern increased the amount of muscle function that is required in the lone leg. This decrease in stability is exactly why I can not do a single leg squat with half of my full squat. Last Friday I had two athletes squat 400 for the first time, which is very impressive considering there body weights are 178 and 204, but I know neither one of them can do a true single leg squat with a 45 pound bar let alone half there max which would be 200.
So we will stick with the single leg squat (SLS) for a little bit. This is not the SLS where you have a leg on a box behind you; in the true SLS or pistol you only have one point of contact. With the version with the leg up behind you, you will not get the same transfer muscle function, because there has not been a drastic change of stability. By doing a SLS we are in a sense teaching the leg to function by itself, without the aid of the other leg. This should make sense to all athletes, since this is what happens very often in sports, you are required to change directions, jump, or sprint off of one leg.
Now let us turn to the upper body for a bit. When performing a DB press you are in fact using your arms separately, but they are still doing the same movement and typically at the same speed as each other. In basketball if you are guarding someone are both your hands doing the same thing? If so, it is rare. So what I will have athletes do is a DB press where only one DB is allowed to move at a time. So one will go all the way up and then back down, and come to a complete stop before the other one moves at all. You do not want to do the scissors motion where one is going up and the other is going down at the same time, when this happens we you are training momentum, not muscle. This movement is great for all athletes and helps with shoulder preservation. Another bonus, if you are like us and your weight room does not have DB's over 75, having your stronger guys do this will still help improve strength without having the bigger bells.
There are countless exercises that we can change to work our bodies in this way and if you need more please let me know, the key is that it must be a free weight movement to have a great effect. There needs to be a decrease in stability by only using one appendage. Doing a single leg, leg extension is not going to do anything worth while, more than a regular leg extension to help you athletically. Even with doing a leg press, there is nothing to stabilize, so reducing legs does not change the muscle activation for these exercises.
Through this training you are required to stabilize your appendages and they will function better independently. So why not do all movements like this? As I have said before everything has its place, but as you add something in, some other movement must come out. If all you did was single movements you would miss out on the increase in absolute muscular strength. In addition to this there would typically be a decrease in speed of the movement, depending on what lift you are doing. What I am trying to say is that there must be a balance, and the hard part is that it is different for everyone, and it is greatly effected by weak points. Again, if you have questions feel free to e-mail me tkolb@northernmichigansportsmed.com, I try to get to all e-mails within a day or two unless it becomes an article.
I thought that I would write an article dealing with the difference between doing an exercise with one extremity or both, and what benefits or drawbacks we can by doing such exercises. I will first list some examples of exercises that I am talking about so you get the picture of what I am talking about:
-squat vs. single leg squat
-bench press vs. single arm DB press
-snatch vs. single arm snatch
Ok, I assume you get the point and can think of more exercise that you can manipulate to make a single leg/arm lift. These lifts have both benefits and drawbacks as far as your training goes. There are different ways to increase strength, and one of these is to decrease stability. That is exactly what is happening when you go from two to one leg. You have decreased your stability and intern increased the amount of muscle function that is required in the lone leg. This decrease in stability is exactly why I can not do a single leg squat with half of my full squat. Last Friday I had two athletes squat 400 for the first time, which is very impressive considering there body weights are 178 and 204, but I know neither one of them can do a true single leg squat with a 45 pound bar let alone half there max which would be 200.
So we will stick with the single leg squat (SLS) for a little bit. This is not the SLS where you have a leg on a box behind you; in the true SLS or pistol you only have one point of contact. With the version with the leg up behind you, you will not get the same transfer muscle function, because there has not been a drastic change of stability. By doing a SLS we are in a sense teaching the leg to function by itself, without the aid of the other leg. This should make sense to all athletes, since this is what happens very often in sports, you are required to change directions, jump, or sprint off of one leg.
Now let us turn to the upper body for a bit. When performing a DB press you are in fact using your arms separately, but they are still doing the same movement and typically at the same speed as each other. In basketball if you are guarding someone are both your hands doing the same thing? If so, it is rare. So what I will have athletes do is a DB press where only one DB is allowed to move at a time. So one will go all the way up and then back down, and come to a complete stop before the other one moves at all. You do not want to do the scissors motion where one is going up and the other is going down at the same time, when this happens we you are training momentum, not muscle. This movement is great for all athletes and helps with shoulder preservation. Another bonus, if you are like us and your weight room does not have DB's over 75, having your stronger guys do this will still help improve strength without having the bigger bells.
There are countless exercises that we can change to work our bodies in this way and if you need more please let me know, the key is that it must be a free weight movement to have a great effect. There needs to be a decrease in stability by only using one appendage. Doing a single leg, leg extension is not going to do anything worth while, more than a regular leg extension to help you athletically. Even with doing a leg press, there is nothing to stabilize, so reducing legs does not change the muscle activation for these exercises.
Through this training you are required to stabilize your appendages and they will function better independently. So why not do all movements like this? As I have said before everything has its place, but as you add something in, some other movement must come out. If all you did was single movements you would miss out on the increase in absolute muscular strength. In addition to this there would typically be a decrease in speed of the movement, depending on what lift you are doing. What I am trying to say is that there must be a balance, and the hard part is that it is different for everyone, and it is greatly effected by weak points. Again, if you have questions feel free to e-mail me tkolb@northernmichigansportsmed.com, I try to get to all e-mails within a day or two unless it becomes an article.
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